EEG~

I was twelve when they parted my hair
into sections, greased my scalp
and attached the ends of an octopus
of wires to my curly blonde head.

Fearful of any hints of science fiction
but embarrassed about fainting
without warning as a child so often
the back of my head kept a bruise,

obediently, I followed the nurse’s directions
to lie still, as I listened to the whirring machines
look inside my unreliable little brain.
Normal, they said, though I didn’t feel it.

Decades later, I discover neuroscience has moved
beyond medical art. Lightweight headsets monitor
our mental states like electrical thermometers
for the mind. Radical new companies race

to market with technologies that raise mood,
increase learning and alter neural pathways,
as they license video games played remotely–
our competitive brainwaves, the joysticks.

With hundreds of futuristic patents pending,
a Brave New industry wants to know us.
I won’t lie still waiting this time; instead,
stimulated, I will rise to invest in this new normal.

Anne McCrady, 5-7-15

Newslinks: BBC, CNN, Huffington Post, IBN Live

Audiolink: SoundCloud

Poet with a Press Pass is a series of weekly poems written by Anne McCrady in response to current events and world news. The series is produced by InSpiritry. Find out more about Anne McCrady and her work at InSpiritry.com.